


like you've been here before

by redledgers



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reincarnation, Time Skips, Vignette, zee i hope this makes u soft and warm and fuzzy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21534694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: and he finds her over and over againchloe, lucifer, and a couple hundred years.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 24
Kudos: 135





	like you've been here before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZeeLinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeeLinn/gifts).



> Happy birthday, darling Zee! 😚
> 
> title from pompeii by bastille

It begins, simply, with a meeting.

He returns from the desert to the bustling markets of Jerusalem, hunger growing in his belly, as if temptation was such hard work. But he hadn’t tempted, not really. He searches now for the sweet taste of fruit to cleanse the taste of ash and sand from his lips. There are many stalls in the market, many men and women vying for just a second of his attention. He passes them all, instead stopping at a stall piled high with fresh figs that sits near the edge of the cluster, and picks one up.

“How many would you like?”

Lucifer places the fig atop the pile with a casual grace and leans toward the woman behind them. He’s struck, at first, by how out of place she looks, and then, by how beautiful she is. “Two,” he says, “if you’ll join me for supper.”

He doesn’t miss the way her blue eyes narrow even as a smile threatens to make itself known at the corner of her lips. She takes two figs and sets them down in front of him, holding out her hand. Lucifer digs a few prutot out and presses the coins into her palm. “And no, I will not join you,” she says as he picks up the fruit.

“Next time, maybe,” he replies, biting into one. The flavor bursts across his tongue, and he eats greedily. Hell has not tasted this sweet. He doubts it ever will.

She smiles now, amused, before another calls for her attention. He tucks the second fruit away to savor later, still licking juice from his lips as he leaves. But he doesn’t go far.

*

The harbor is calm, the sand beneath his feet coarse, but it is far better than stone and ash. Dusk settles over the town, and he can smell the fish hauled in from this morning’s catch and the smoke that twists skyward from cookfires.

“I assure you that would be a bad idea,” he says to the air, the sea.

She creeps out from behind a longboat, tucking her knife at her hip. “And who would you be to decide that, stranger?”

In the fading light, he can see her just as well as if the sun were shining on her lovely face. Her golden hair is braided back, the furs around her shoulder silver and warm, and in her eyes, he sees something familiar. Perhaps desire. He flashes a wolfish grin, offering his hand. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he purrs, his voice rolling across the space like the tide. He thinks he sees an amused smirk start to grace her lips. “I have several things to offer in trade.”

“Dinner?” she asks.

“If that’s what you desire.” Her hand is warm in his when she takes it, pulling him toward her home, and he learns what it is like to lose himself over and over again.

*

It continues, simply, with time.

*

Florence is bursting with energy, ebbing and flowing, full of art and innovation. He thinks, fondly enough, of the Golden Age just two centuries prior, but here he has more than his fair share of lovers and indulgences.

“They say you’re like a sculpture.”

When he sees her, her hair is dark and curling, and she smiles at him with a light in her eyes. “And who’s spreading the good news?” he asks. She seems out of place in the osteria. He isn’t sure why, but he feels like she is bigger than anyone here.

She shrugs.

“A drink?” His wine is nearly empty, and he’d planned on venturing out tonight, but he would stay for her company.

Her laughter is like honey, and he learns later that her lips taste like the figs he had eaten so long ago. The figs he had plucked from her hand each morning for three days with nothing more than a smile and always the offer of something more, if she desired. And he may be a sculpture here, but she is the true art, and the thing in his battered soul wants to find her over and over again.

*

“May I have the honor,” he says, bowing low, “of dancing with you tonight?”

And who is she to refuse, because he had danced with many a fine young lady tonight, all with the same dreams of being whisked away by the dashing and rich Mr. Morningstar. He would entertain them all, if he were able. The least he can do is spare them all a dance. When he rises, he is not surprised to see her proffered hand, and he takes it, bringing it to his lips.

The kiss is a shock to his system, the gentle brush of his lips against her skin, and his eyes flick up to lock on hers. “It’s you,” he says.

Her dark eyes shine and in them he sees confusion. For the briefest of moments, he thinks he got it wrong this time, that when he had seen her doubled over the hilt of a sword it had been the last. But she smiles, the same soft smile he has grown used to, and he knows that he will find the time to learn her heart over and over again.

*

This is the longest he has spent with her, in the smog and ash-choked sunlight, beside the gentle waves of the ocean, presiding over a kingdom of pleasure and becoming a subject in a kingdom of justice. Her golden hair set alight, always framed in holy fire the way it was at the beginning. It’s both easy and the most difficult thing he has done, rediscovering her, learning anew, and learning _new_ as well. But it feels right, and so he always comes back to her, here, in this place. “It was you,” he says. “It always has been.”

And her smile is soft, playing at the corner of her lips, and her soul is the same, ancient thing, and he would hold it tenderly if he could, if she let him. But he finds he cannot, not yet, not this time. He tastes the salt on her lips, so unlike the sweet fruit he would offer, if he could. And he would love her over and over again.

It ends, simply, with a separation.


End file.
